Forgive Us Our Trespasses
by Chibi Taryn Demon
Summary: Sephiroth awakens to find himself stuck in the land of the dead, with only a ghost from his past to keep him company. Will she be able to save the soul of a man who doesn't believe he should be saved? One-shot, implied Aeriseph.


A/N: An odd little fic that came to me because, for some reason, I'd had the Lord's Prayer stuck in my head for a while. I'm not really a religious person at all, but I find the rhythm of it pretty. The religious aspect does play a part in here but hopefully it won't offend/scare anyone off. This is also probably very unrealistic, but eh. It felt good to write and besides, I've been writer's-blocked on Reflect the Sky anyway. See if you can catch the Advent Children quote I threw in!

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all related characters are property of Square-Enix.

* * *

**Forgive Us Our Trespasses**

The last thing he felt on the mortal plane of existence was the cold bite of a sword slashing him countless times. Brilliant aquamarine eyes widened in shock and pain, then dulled quickly as the fog of death clouded his mind.

The last thing he saw before his vision failed him was his blond-haired adversary, battered and bloodied, staring at him with an expression of long-awaited victory tempered with sadness—probably remembering those he had lost.

The last thing he tasted was the coppery tang of his own blood staining the inside of his mouth. It trickled down his chin in crimson rivulets, marring the perfect white skin there.

Abruptly, like a movie running out of reel, everything was cut off. His senses shut down by a power beyond his control, now that he was just like any other human being. There was only nothing; not even darkness. Just nothing.

* * *

He drifted for years, centuries, eons. It could have been any amount of time; its passing did not affect him, the lost soul that he was. The Lifestream, unable to reincarnate his tainted soul, simply allowed him to float.

He didn't know that, of course. He was dead and remained in that stupor the entire time.

But the soul always needs a home and in this case, his old body would have to do. The Planet had nothing else to offer him.

His body was still reforming, after that last catastrophic battle with Strife. The Lifestream wrapped him up securely as his form materialized once more. The delicate process of recreating flesh and bone took many, many years. So long, in fact, that the ones who had defeated him in the first place had already passed on and been reborn into new bodies.

In that sense, he did defeat them. He was not quite a god, but not mortal either. He hung suspended between the two planes, a being that no one knew what to do with. Until now, they didn't have to—his consciousness slept as his essence gathered itself.

After 73 years, it was time for him to awaken.

* * *

The first thing he smelled was the rich scent of damp earth. It spoke of an ancient wisdom and boundless vitality. The aroma was one that he hadn't noticed in a long time, even when he was alive on the Planet. Generals didn't care about what they crushed underfoot, after all.

The first thing he felt was the slight tickle of grass against his cheek as he breathed. It moved with his inhales and exhales; the delicate little blades only brushing the curve of his cheek, with a softness he had never felt in life.

The second thing he felt was a gentle touch stroking the back of his head.

At that, the man's eyes snapped open. His irises were green, but much lighter than the grass cushioning him—they hovered between pale jade and aquamarine, depending on the way the sun hit them. Beautiful eyes, but for the coldness that seeped into them. His vision, unused for so long, was blurry and useless.

He tried to move his body, but his violent death plus the time spent in slumber had weakened him. His limbs ignored their commands and he simply lay there on his stomach, forced to endure a stranger's hands running through his hair.

"Who are you?" He croaked out, his usually-rich voice hoarse from disuse. The hands on his head paused for a moment, then resumed their tender petting.

"A friend," came the response. A woman, with an almost-childish voice that flowed like watered silk. He had heard it before. But where?

A more important question came to him then. His mind was blank, almost carefully so. He had no recollections of anything at all.

"Who…am I?" asked the man, steadier now. The hands withdrew from him entirely, and he could feel the woman beside him shift, probably to lean back on her heels.

"Are you sure you want to remember?" she asked back, tinted with hesitation. A swell of confusion and anger surged in him at her implication—that he wouldn't want to know who he was.

"Of course I do!" he answered carelessly, unheeding her unspoken warning that _there are some things too painful to know_.

With a little sigh, the woman placed her hands on his temples, leaning slightly over his back. He stiffened at the touch of her warm fingertips against his brow, but said nothing.

"I'm sorry," was all she said, before a vicious explosion of light and images and voices flared inside his mind simultaneously. Memories savagely revealed themselves, raw and unaltered in all of their horrible glory.

Flames. Screams of the dying. The vacant, soulless eyes of the dead. A nation broken and a city crushed. A fiery black sphere, throbbing in the sky. A girl in pink stabbed through the heart. The overpowering presence of one called "Mother". And above all, blood. Everywhere. Coating his sword, his coat, his hands…

He cried out mentally, and unbeknownst to himself, vocally as well. The girl was there, gathering his head in her lap, making gentle shushing noises, as her gift of remembrance wreaked havoc on the man.

His frantic motions stopped. He was still for a long moment, so still that Aeris feared the influx had killed him. Then he drew himself up and away from her in one fluid motion. She remained sitting, hands folded in her lap, watching him placidly. He stood and regarded her silently. His eyes and the coldness there told her everything she needed to know.

Sephiroth was back. He had remembered everything.

She squared her shoulders. The hardest part was yet to come.

* * *

The memories threatened to crush him under their weight. If he allowed them to, they would bury him under their mountains of blame and guilt and he would be shattered and he wouldn't let that happen he had to fight it he had to keep up pretenses or else or else there would be nothing left of him—

"Cetra," Sephiroth sneered. "I should have known it would be you."

Aeris was quiet. She peered up at him from behind long honey-brown bangs, her emerald eyes wide and observant. They pierced him, easily blazing through his defenses and gazing at the naked soul beneath.

"You've changed," she remarked.

Sephiroth let out a short bark of laughter. "You haven't! You remain the same pitiful traitor that you were back when you followed the puppet!" Keep lying don't let her see how your hands tremble reveal no weakness—

Aeris smoothed back her hair. "I'm sorry that I had to show you that. I had a feeling you would want to see, though. Who wouldn't want complete and total knowledge of their past, seen from all angles and observed from all sides?"

"Shut up, girl!" snarled Sephiroth, hands clenched into fists at his sides. It was true, what she'd said: the memories that assailed him were not all his own. Some were of Nibelheim villagers, others of Shinra troopers, even some from Strife and that girl that was always hanging around him. The only thing they had in common with each other was that he had hurt all of them in some way.

"Admitting and accepting your sins is the first step towards forgiveness, you know." Aeris said. "Trust me. I used to hang out in a church a lot!" A giggle escaped her lips before she could help it.

Sephiroth remained standing, arms crossed, glaring down at her. Even in the simple black pants and tunic the Lifestream had provided him with, he made an imposing figure. His silver hair streamed out around his pale face and his eyes blazed like coals; if she didn't know better, Aeris would have thought of him as an avenging angel. She could not have looked much more different from him, kneeling on the ground with her dark hair flowing down her back and a white sundress on her slender form.

"I accept nothing. I did what I believed was right." Sephiroth's voice was hard and rough as flint. "Therefore, I don't need forgiveness—from you or from anyone else."

"Please, don't lie," she pleaded, her voice as soft as his was harsh. "I can see the change in you. There is sorrow in your eyes now where there was none before."

Her lips quirked upwards as Sephiroth immediately whirled around, facing away from her. He damned his traitorous eyes.

"The Planet is ready to forgive you, and so is the Lord our God. I have already forgiven you. All that's left is for you to forgive yourself, and you can only accomplish that by first admitting that you did something wrong." Aeris said evenly, keeping accusation and ire out of her words.

She was only met with silence.

Sephiroth clenched his eyes shut and pressed into them with the heels of his hands. Don't feel don't regret don't change you will be broken and dissipate to the winds most of all don't listen to this girl she will be the end of you her help is harm disguised—

His mind was near-frantic, a state which he had not felt in years. His confidence was shattered; everything he knew, or thought he knew, was wrong. Lies. He felt like reeling about in a stupor. But the damnable girl was there, and she would take it to mean that she was right and that her parlor tricks had gotten to him.

"Why do you care, girl? In fact, why are you even here?" Sephiroth laughed with the hysterical edge of one pushed too far. "Did your Planet forsake you, Cetra? Is that why you're trapped here with me?"

"No," she answered simply. "I'm here because I want to be."

"What kind of person would want to be near their murderer?" He snapped, angry at her, angry at himself. Why wouldn't she leave him be?

"Well, either someone very foolish…" She laughed a little at that. "Or someone with enough love in her heart to forgive him. I'd prefer to think of myself as the latter, if you please."

The man didn't laugh. Slowly, he turned back around to face her.

He just looked at her, as if she were an alien life form he had never encountered before. The girl's lips curled upwards and she sat, content to let his eyes sweep over her.

The silence stretched on for a few minutes, before he spoke again. "How…how could you possibly forgive one such as I? I murdered you. I hurt your friends. I summoned Meteor to destroy the Planet, for God's sake!"

"Exactly! That's why I forgave you. For God's sake." Aeris beamed at him. Sephiroth shook his head.

"I don't understand," he murmured, mollified by confusion.

Aeris stood up, smoothing her dress as she did. It fell just short of her bare feet, leaving them unhindered to feel the grass and dirt. She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned forward, in her trademark gesture.

"What exactly don't you understand? I think you get it perfectly well—you're a very smart man—and maybe you don't want to admit it to me. That's okay, really!" Aeris hummed a little, straightened, and spread her arms, delighting in the feel of the warm breeze.

"And if you don't…well, you will when you're ready, I suppose! And we've got all the time in the world." She twirled around and around, her white skirt flaring out around her calves and her feet crushing grass underfoot. The sweet scent of the flattened grasses rose and wafted to Sephiroth; it smelled like springtime.

He watched the girl sing to herself and whirl about gracefully. He may have understood what she was talking about before, about forgiveness, but he was relatively sure he would never understand Aeris. She seemed positively insane, eerily wise and annoyingly cheerful by turns.

Irritated now by the girl's carefree attitude and refusal to explain herself to him, Sephiroth lashed out, "It was like a game to me!"

She stopped. "What was?"

"The killing," he snarled. He would make her understand, make her feel about him the way he felt about himself. Then maybe she would go away and he would be allowed to wallow in misery.

"Twisting the memories of Strife. All of it was a game. Even killing you. I murdered you and I enjoyed it and I would do it again!"

Sephiroth was breathing heavily, eyes blazing even more than usual. He forced a sick smile onto his face. There. Let her think him a monster.

"Do you understand now?"

"I thought we'd agreed no more lying?" Aeris tsked and waggled a finger at him. "Besides, I've already forgiven you. Nothing you can say will make me change my opinion of you."

The girl stepped closer, keeping her eyes locked on his. He stiffened as she placed her hands lightly on his shoulders; his mind raced but there were no words.

"You were a good man, before Jenova. You are a good man now that she's gone. Your only fault in these past years was succumbing to her. To move on to the Promised Land, you must seek forgiveness…"

He was drowning in the emerald seas of her eyes the walls were crumbling his façade crushed he had to be strong he had to he had to he had to—

"Sephiroth."

When she said his name, finally, he broke. She had uttered it softly, still staring at him, without a trace of fear or hatred in her voice. It was like music, but not the music Jenova had flooded his mind with while in battle; this was simple and so tangible he could feel it at his fingertips.

Had anyone every uttered his name so sweetly?

His trembling became uncontrollable.

He surged forward and clung to the girl desperately, a drowning man and a life preserver. His face hid in the crook of her neck and his fingers entwined themselves in her long burnished hair.

"Shh…it's alright," Aeris murmured, rubbed his back, tried to be soothing. She felt tears dampening the shoulder of her dress. Her heart ached for this proud man and the lies he had lived out. She knew that her friends, had they been alive and here to see it, never would have believed that the great ex-general Sephiroth was weeping on her shoulder. But he was, and she was allowing him. This was not the man who had killed her over a lifetime ago.

He was whispering something over and over; she strained her ears to hear it.

"What have I done, what have I done…" chanted in the most broken, sorrowful voice she could have imagined.

"I forgave you, and so shall He," she consoled. Sephiroth's tears flowed slower now, and finally halted altogether.

Flushing, he pulled away from her and attempted to straighten himself. He wiped his eyes quickly with the sleeve of his shirt and refused to meet her gaze, instead staring at the ground in shame.

"All those people…" he said without meaning too, and Aeris almost wept. His tone was awed, horrified and disgusted at once. "I truly am a…monster."

"Stop it!" Aeris cried out. She checked herself, reigning in her emotions, and put a serene look on her face. It wouldn't do if she fell apart now, not when she was so close to reaching him…

"Please, Sephiroth. It's obvious that you recognize your sins and you regret them. Monsters do not recognize or regret. Only humans have emotions as powerful as that. Jenova was the true monster; she took advantage of you during your time of greatest need and used you. She was not repentant in life or in death, and so she received punishment. But you…in death you've seen the truth. Now all you have to do is fully embrace it."

She stretched out her pale hand in the divide between them. It hung there, the offer of a second chance if only he were strong enough to take it.

"Pray with me," said the girl. "All will be forgiven."

"I do not deserve forgiveness," he replied hollowly, the images haunting him mercilessly. Flames blood screams ringing in the darkness and him he was there laughing he was a god unto himself—

"I've already given it to you." The girl smiled. "We've been over this."

"I killed you," he whispered, unable to believe it no matter how many times he saw the scene flash in his mind. It hung there like a dead weight, mocking him with its tragic savagery. "I killed you. I killed you!"

He wanted to say her name so badly, but he couldn't. The breath from his lips would stain it, make the sins he had committed against her even worse. He had no right to say it.

"How can I make you understand?" She shook her head slightly, still smiling but with a sheen of tears glossing over her eyes. "At first, I was angry—you did take away my chance to live. But then, I learned about you and what you'd been through, and I couldn't bring myself to hate you. I realized that I never had hated you, really. Forgiving you seemed like the next logical step."

God, he wanted to touch her right then, just to see if she was real. How could she be? Why would a being this pure, this _good_, waste their time on someone like him?

"You've suffered enough. Forgiveness is in your grasp, Sephiroth." She twitched her fingers slightly. Hesitantly, he took her hand. The warmth from her skin felt surprisingly good against his cold palm.

"Aeris," he finally said. She looked startled for a moment, then smiled so widely the tears did spill down her face.

"I don't think you've ever said my name before," she said, more to herself than him.

"I…I just…I am…" Frustrated, Sephiroth clamped his lips shut. His apology hovered unfinished in the air. He couldn't force the words from his mouth; they were too painful.

She squeezed his hand. "I know."

"You…know?"

Aeris nodded. For a moment they just stood there, holding hands, staring at each other. Sephiroth wanted to brush the tears off of her face, but remained still.

"What must I do?" he asked. "I think…I want to be forgiven."

More tears pooled in her eyes at his words. Her hands reached up and clasped over his, pressing them together.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…" She paused, watching him watch her. "Say it with me. He is merciful to all of His lost lambs and will welcome you back to the flock very eagerly, I think."

The man's voice joined the young woman's in reciting the prayer, hesitantly at first but gaining in strength and volume until the mingled voices rang out as clearly and beautifully as bells, his tenor entwined with her soprano.

"Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."

Their eyes caught and held on the last word. "Amen."

"See? That wasn't so hard." She smiled at him through her tears. The sunlight that had been filtered down through the cloud cover burnished her hair so that it appeared golden, then flowed down and seemed to center on her shoulders.

"Aeris!" Sephiroth couldn't help but gasp as a pair of white-feathered wings unfurled on her back. They were longer than she was tall, with pinions nearly sweeping the ground, and shone dazzlingly in the sunlight. Tears dampened his face.

He felt on odd tingling sensation on his shoulder blades and looked over his shoulder. He, too, had sprouted wings—though each one had a single black feather intermixed with the white. To remind him, he guessed, of his past.

In the sky above, the remaining clouds parted and the sunlight blazed down in a single ray before them. Held within it was the promise of a second chance; repentance, perhaps, and acceptance. Still, he felt nervous and small when he looked at it, like it was something so powerful he would never comprehend its majesty. Aeris sensed his anxiety.

"Take my hand," Aeris whispered. "We'll go together."

"Together," echoed Sephiroth, surprised.

"Yes. You and I will stay together." A blush stained her cheeks as she realized what she had said. "I mean, if you want to."

"I…would like that," he said, swallowing his nervousness and embarrassment and forging ahead with the dangerous thoughts clamoring in his head. "Perhaps you can even…teach me. To be more like you."

"Me?" Aeris blushed even more. "I think you're fine just the way you are. Why would you want to be like me?"

His eyes were intense and light; when he stared at her like she, she felt an odd stirring in the depths of her belly, one that used to awaken when Cloud smiled at her.

"Because I want to be an angel worthy of its wings."

She didn't try to staunch the flow of tears this time. Aeris laughed gaily despite them and gave him a wink.

"Somehow, I think you'll do just fine. But I'll be right there if you need any help."

He offered her a rare gift: a tentative, shaky and genuine smile.

"You should smile more often," Aeris complimented.

"Perhaps I will, now that I have something to smile about," he murmured. Their wings, impressive as they were, brushed against each other and both of them shivered at the delightful contact. They both fidgeted for a moment, unsure of themselves, uncomfortable but oddly pleased with the surge of new feelings singing in their blood.

"Shall we?" Sephiroth gestured forward with his free hand. Aeris nodded.

Still holding hands, the two figures stepped forwards into the shaft of sunlight. Their forms glowed entirely golden for a moment, before they seemed to dissipate into thousands of tiny sparks that swirled and shimmered before flowing upwards into the boundless blue sky and the promise of redemption.

* * *

(Following Format Thingy Stolen from Ardwynna and Noacat)

**Time**: 2 hour 40 min.

**Music**: "Night Ride Across the Caucasus"Loreena McKennitt

"Mad World", by Gary Jules

Assorted classical pieces


End file.
